BOSTON—One person believes that CUs can take a lesson from the National Football League when it comes to succession planning.
Deedee Myers, CEO at DDJ Myers, Ltd, addressed a crowd here as part of NAFCU’s Annual Conference, and emphasized that succession planning is as important to credit unions as disaster planning. Her colleague, Peter Myers, reminded that one organization he has worked with has a CEO retiring in September and no succession plan is in place. That organization is now considering merging into another.
While CUs need succession planning for senior staff, much of Myers’ presentation was devoted to succession planning at the board level, which she said sets the tone for succession planning at the rest of the organization.
When planning for CEO succession, Myers emphasized that he board must understand its responsibility in that process. She recommended insisting on “ready now” or “drop in” candidates form inside or outside of the organization that can immediately step into leading roles. She admitted that those candidates carry an additional cost for institutions, because they are highly marketable. She offered the example of CommunityAmerica CU in Lenexa, Kan., which instituted an upper-level and mid-level employee hiring process a decade ago in which the entire organization is honest about their plans.
Supports Boot Camp’
“If the CEO isn’t leaving and somebody else is ready to be CEO, he supports them going somewhere else,” she said. “That actually kept people there longer, because of the commitment that CommunityAmerica had to their development.”
Despite the importance of succession planning, Myers conceded that many CUs—especially smaller ones—don’t do it, or at least not to the extent that they should. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Myers supports the recent move by NCUA’s Office of Small CU Initiatives, which has moved away from succession planning at small CUs and now does “boot camp” training for new CEOs (http://www.cujournal.com/news/OSUCI-your-house-your-cu-shouldnt-be-the-same-place-1020194-1.html). She said that in instances where proper succession planning isn’t an option, that type of strategy can be effective.
More info: www.ddjmyers.com
